26 May 2007 9:22 a.m. i now run on coffee, cucumbers and yogurt. next step - air. the search for a research assistant continues ever onward. stupid is everywhere (in ur varsitiez, meltin yur brainz!). i can accept clueless undergrads asking about specific details but i think you're a fucking stupid twat if you write to me and address me as Dr Vivian when the original mail clearly has my own name at the end. unfortunately, i replied politely. i'm all blog and no bite, me. oh, and this is for relief. for the next few months or so, i will be greeted by cries of, "good morning, kakak!" when i enter the stool lab. my molecular lab will be my refuge and the undergrads working on their final year projects will be as good an incentive as any to hurry up and finish. am i really more than five years older than them? i like working alone, you know. it's quiet and i'm at peace with myself and the world until Cindy comes busting in asking for microcentrifuge tubes and setting a (dirty) box down on the work bench i've just cleaned, THE OBLIVIOUS BITCH. okay, breath. it's a refreshing change not seeing monkeys humping with joyous abandon during my walk in the park. at all the picnics i've seen, there's always, always one dude who brings a guitar, stakes out his corner of the canvas and strums something tuneless for a hapless female sitting near by. i am a snob. i sent out a mass email for a research assistant for Dr Vivian's (medical) research project and she got an enquiry from someone from the linguistic faculty. and i've just replied to an email enquiry from an engineering student. so, how? Robert Carlisle's in it. Muse screams its merry way through the trailer (who else sings like their preciouses are caught in a mincer, who???). that means 28 Weeks Later ought to be good, innit? i read the screenplay for 28 Days Later a few days ago. it has grainy black and white movie stills! it made me think of one of my favourite scenes - when Jim literally rises from the dead (hohoho) and becomes Rambo. what brilliance. it were barry, like. (okay, i lifted that from Mimi Smartypants. i love it. i mean, her.) i finally watched Quills (2000), which as everyone knows, is the historically inaccurate but extremely entertaining, and entirely unsuitable for family viewing, movie about the Marquis de Sade and his time in the Charenton asylum. it was nominated for three academy awards (and probably won some for coolest costume, re: dried blood text on dirty white suit). i have one de Sade book, and as Colmier (Joaquin Phoenix's character - administrator of the asylum) pointed out, the text is clumsy and the characters are wooden. dude needed a beta-reader more than anything else. this is a summary of the movie -
LOL... er... nvm
no cookie for you
no escape
maybe it's just me
is this weird?
hyperbole
smash the control machines"holy Kate Winslet's breasts, Batman! it's Geoffrey Rush's penis! de Sade was a rock star! i mean, Joaquin Phoenix in a hot black priest's cassock! Napoleon is short LOL Michael Caine is teh evil!"
wicked sly funny dialogue +100
quotes -
"To know virtue we must acquaint ourselves with vice.""Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always run more smoothly when lubricated."
that is all. you must beg, borrow or steal a copy. just not mine, though.
08 May 2007 9:00 a.m.best invention ever
this thermocycler runs on 2 AA batteries, cost the inventors only $10 to make AND completes a run in 20 minutes.
however: how many samples can be run, can you program different profiles on to it and how?
most importantly, will it come in pink? i am sick of seeing lab equipment that only comes in five shades of gray.
2. it's all very well to have police outriders to force the plebian motorist to give way, but why don't VIPs ever arrive on time?
3. diaryland servers didn't allow non-paying members to update for a few days. they are now doubtlessly writing about how they were unable to update their journals and were thus consumed by frustration and anger. in my case, i was pleased to find out i still knew how to work a book. and needle and thread. don't laugh, dammit.
(given the imminent flood of backlogged entries, though, i wouldn't be surprised if the servers weren't able to cope when non-paying members are eventually allowed in. maybe i should wait it out.)
4. i like coffee.
01 May 2007 11:57 a.m.zing: where is the humanity?
no sooner have i pegged the four young men congregating at the foot of the escalator and blocking everyone's path as stupid/trash/unsavoury foreign workers/all of the above do they finish rummaging through their pockets and give all the small change they found to the (as yet unnoticed by moi because i was too busy sneering) beggar woman seated beside the stairs.
